Sailfish OS is currently being tested at Fairphone, and Sailfish OS including its Android support was already seen running on this phone during MWC16. Hope for a later official version stands strong in the communities:

Also Daria finds user feedback always as important. Now that the community version is released, let's start testing and sharing some feedback. Leave a comment for example below, or visit Fairphone forums for this.

For the end, Daria mentioned the power of the communities "not to be underestimated" in spreading the word out. Reading between the lines, this might be exactly what's needed right now to support the availability of the official version, so...Fairphone is a Dutch social enterprise focusing on healthy supply chains, customer enabled repairs and longer lifespan with their modular smartphone model Fairphone 2

Sailfish OS is a gesture based mobile operating system developed by Jolla Oy, Finland, a software company focusing on user experience and privacy.

This OS was first released on November 2013 running on Jolla Phone, and since then there have been 15 public upgrades, the latest being Sailfish OS 2.0.0.10 Saimaa. Sailfish OS 2.0.2.x Aurajoki is expected to be released by the end of April for the Intex Aqua Fish launch, bringing in for example Dual SIM support also useful for Fairphone 2.

Disclaimer: Testing with any unofficial images is in your own responsibility. If you brick the device following this guide, it's up to you to fix. This guide is written by information available on April 2016 after the first alpha version was released, please check any possible updates in this post and in the sources linked in the end of this post.

Pre-requirements:

Fairphone 2 with standard or open source Android installed

Computer with fastboot (Part of Android SDK platform tools) installed. Use this minimal install guide on XDA, or install the full SDK via Android. Depending on your OS, you might also need additional drivers.

Optional, Recommended: Backup your data on the phone, as changing the OS will remove all user data

Step 1: Extract the images

Find fastboot.exe on your computer (...\Android-SDK\platform-tools)

Extract the downloaded Sailfish zip -file on your computer and save the images in it into the same directory where fastboot.exe is located

Open a command prompt as an administrator (cmd on Windows, or any terminal on Linux) and navigate to your fastboot.exe directory using cd command

Checking fastboot. Photo by André

Step 2: Boot your Fairphone 2 into fastboot mode

Your phone should be turned off. Press and hold Volume Down -button while connecting USB cable between your Fairphone and a computer.

Release your finger when you see light on the phone. Note: You don't need to touch the power button.

(Step 2B if running on the latest Android: Downgrade)

Note: Follow this step if your Android version is 1.2.8. or later, or if you've already installed Sailfish OS and you're experiencing problems with camera and playback. A downgrade to 1.1.7 is needed for the camera and mp3 decoder to work on the Sailfish OS alpha1 version. If your Android version is 1.1.7. already, you can jump to step 3 directly.

On the command line/terminal of your computer, enter fastboot devices to check if your fastboot is working. This command should return something like "a1b2c3 fastboot"

If the result is an empty line, troubleshoot fastboot

If it seems to be working, go on with:

fastboot flash userdata userdata.img

fastboot flash boot boot.img

fastboot reboot

and wait for your Fairphone to show boot image

Using fastboot. Photo by André

Step 4: Go through the welcoming screens of your Sailfish OS

Optional: Add a Jolla Account to gain access to Sailfish OS apps in the Jolla Store

Optional: For nice assortment of unofficial apps, visit OpenRepos with the browser. You can download any armv7hl.rpm packages and install them via Settings > System > Transfers. Note the unofficial status of these, some of them are open source.

Optional: Add other accounts you might use via Settings > Accounts. For chatting, there's for example XMPP (Jabber) nicely integrated into the Messages and People app

Successful! Photo by André

Missing features and known issues:

Insert your SIM Card into the slot closer to the camera. Dual SIM is not yet supported by the OS, a later image should fix this

Commercial parts of Sailfish OS: Android support, Exchange Active Sync and Text Prediction are not included due to licensing reasons. Another open source solution for Android apps exists, but that is not yet available for Fairphone 2

I am supporting this "So currently there is No point of buying Fairphone 2 as it is just another Android device." and I dare to say that with Android this is not any "Fair"device for many reasons. I am also next one of many potential clients when only this will be with Sailfish OS. That is something I want, and Android OS is something I don't want, even when I respect it. That's it and that's all.

Sailfish OS version is the latest 2.0.0.10-Alpha 1.(https://wiki.merproject.org/wiki/Adaptations/libhybris/Install_SailfishOS_for_fp2).WAV files working well and Cutespot but for example Y-Radio or Nettiradio crashes when try to play streams. Both Camera apps, native and Cameraplus also crashes when i open it.

I've never heard of cameras not working, you might first check that the hardware is ok and then ask about this from the porters (Freenode IRC, #sailfishos-porters). Could be for example a problem during installation.

Hi Pasik, you basically asked about the same in Finnish (so no need to translate that to our other readers). I contacted the main developer "mal" of this port to maybe get some help on your issue. He replied: There are some issues with camera when using the latest android (release 1.2.8) from Fairphone, using the previous version it works.

I intalled the community port on my Faiphone2 and it's running fine. There are only minor problems. The most missing part for me is the lack of the exchange support (and the restriction about the dual sim support at the moment). I will use the phone for privat and for bussiness. So i would need both. I also would pay the additional licence fee for that. About the android support i think the open source port would be the better way. There is no dependecy to a bug fix from a company with the open source solution.

Thanks for joining into testing, I guess we all hope for an official version to be available on one sunny day. For Android support, there might be something nice to share also for the unofficial version later. Happy for any feedback from your testing too!

Hi there,I just installed Sailfish on my FP2 as well and am willing to share my experience with it. Not sure if this is the best place for it.Jolla looks realy smooth, nice movements and design. I like it! For now I had a small error in the Jolla-store. When browsing through the apps it keeps reminding me that I'm in developer-mode. This way you can't use the button to go back. I just switched the developer-mode on for testing, not realy doing anything with it. Next to that it gave the massage "USB cable removed" when it is plugged in the computer. Switching to a charger stopped the massage.

Hi Wouter, the developer gets feedback also via here, so thanks for sharing. Quoting him after your comment: "afaik there was a bug related to USB mode handling which got just fixed in upstream, not sure if related to that" ("upstream" means the future development of sailfish os, later versions will be used also for the future images for FP2 so this should get fixed in one of those)

Thanks for update instructions! i downgraded back to Android 1.1.7 and then re-install Sailfish and now mp3 music plays and camera working. Only problem is that earphone volume is too quiet. I hardly hear phone conversations even if i am a quiet room.

Of course they should get all the time they need, I just wondered. :) I managed to get my grips around the cd-thingy, and actually got Sailfish up and running! Great fun, first time I ever used the cmd tool.

After the first day of use, i basically got the same issues as mentioned above. Oh, and for some reason the torch app doesn´t work, but I guess that's something for the creator of the app to dig into(?). Anyway, huge thanks to everyone who's involved in this! :)